Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Call for Papers. Patristic, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies (PMR) at Villanova University invites you to participate in its 34th International PMR Conference. October 16-18, 2009.

The PMR committee this year makes a special invitation to scholars from all disciplines in these fields to address our plenary theme : Ora et Labora. Pray and Work.

As always, the PMR makes an open call to scholars, institutions, and societies to propose Papers, Panels, or Sponsored Sessions in all areas and topics in Late Antiquity / Patristics, Byzantine Studies, Medieval Studies, Islamic Studies, Jewish Studies, and Renaissance & Reformation Studies.

From the Christian liturgy of the hours to Jewish daily liturgy and the Muslim call to prayer, the cultures of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages marked the movement of the day's work with prayer. The day's frame was set by spiritual exercises of many sorts, and thus the fruits of one's labor, one's work, bore within it something of the fruits of the spirit. What is the relationship between the many forms of work - intellectual, manual, cultural, artistic, social, political, economic - and prayer ? Are there points of tension ? Resistance ? From lectio divina and sacred theology, to scholastic philosophy and canon law ; from the Divine Comedy and liturgical plays, to sacred architecture and iconography, from the Holy Roman Empire and educational foundations, to Byzantine schools and monasteries, to Jewish chevruta and Islamic madrasas, this year's thematic "conference within a conference" will explore these questions and more, opening up a fresh, new perspective on perennial questions of matter and spirit, reason and faith, politics and religion.